Integrity and Ethics
I shake my head an awful lot thinking, “it must be me”.
My 17-year old stepdaughter lost her cell phone. Most likely in the Newark International Airport. Yea, right - gone. Called and had the number shut off - no big deal. Maybe it will turn up in her bags . . .
Ten days later upon her return, off we go to the cell phone store. Well, she’s had a phone for a few years and is really, really careful - so last upgrade I did not go for the insurance. Ouch! Unless you are signing up for a new service agreement, the phones start around $200. Ouch!
Well, the young man waiting on us was looking at the account and noticed the phone that my 14-year old stepson has is insured.
Get this - he tells me to call the insurance department, hands me a card with their number on it, and report the insured phone missing. Then for just $50 they’ll send me a replacement.
WHAT??? But that’s not the phone that is lost. His reply - oh, don’t worry about it - people do it all the time.
Well, if that’s true it’s a crying shame. My mother’s voice actually played in my head at one point asking if everyone was jumping off a bridge would I do it too?
So, we had a discussion about ethics, honesty, and integrity and I hope the kids got something out of it. I explained that I didn’t really care if I was one in one thousand people who wouldn’t do that. It was not a matter of “getting caught” either. I’ll be the first one to complain about feeling as though I’m getting ripped off right and left (and I’m really pissed at Cingular right now for blocking calls to free conferencing numbers) but that still does not make it right in my book.
Is it me? Am I odd? Would you have done it?
P.S. We ended up finding someone selling the same model phone she lost on eBay for $50 and all ended well.